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Friederick William Urich |
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| b. 1872, d. 1936 A Trinidarian naturalist who sent the specimens of cave fish from the Urumaca cave in Trinidad to London for identification. When received by the British Museum of Natural History in July 1924, they were given to John Richardson Norman, who had published a few papers on the fishes of the nearby island of Tobago. Besides certain reduction in the eye size, this fish was extremely similar to Rhamdia quelen, a well-known epigean fish common to northeastern South America and Trinidad. Fearing that the specimen could represent an accident of nature rather than a true new fish species, Norman requested two more specimens and Urich complied. He later published its report and named the fish Caecorhamdia urichi, (caeco = blind; rhamdia = the genus of a catfish to which this cave fish seemed most related to; urichi = honoring Urich, the collector) (Norman 1926). Since then, this fish species has consistently appeared in the lists of blind cave fishes of the world although today they are considered individuals of the common catfish R. quelen, a species of nocturnal habits showing different degrees of (but never complete) blindness and depigmentation (Romero & Creswell 2000). This would be the first report of a cave fish population of an epigean species with certain degrees of troglomorphic features. |
 We know that Urich is one of the two people in this picture with Teddy Roosevelt (standing right). This picture was taken at the entrance of the Cumaca Cave. |
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